Went to see Spider-Man and thought it was fantastic. Didn’t go too far down the gimmicky route and left things in a very exciting place for the future. They basically fixed most of what I disliked about the effects MCU-ification has had on the character.
Saw No Way Home the other day and enjoyed it. It was an interesting film; unique in many ways. More of a rumination on what it means to be a hero or a villain than an actual superhero film. I thought Alfred Molina was brilliant in it. Whenever conversation turns to my favourite actors, I never think to mention him, but he's superb
Catching up on the thread, it's nice to see No Country for Old Men getting a mention. One of my favourite ever films, for its unwavering devotion to the source material. The Road was similarly respectful towards the novel. Maybe it's a McCarthy thing.
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
Finished watching Bad Boys 2 and overall, this is not a good movie. The biggest issue with it is that it's too damn long! It's 2.5 hours long and that's way too long for this kind of movie. The first one was 1.5 hours I think, so I don't know why they felt like making the sequel almost twice as long. There's just so much padding, I can think of plenty of parts that they could've cut out and it would've made the movie much better. I mean, it took me multiple days to watch through it! It just didn't have the same appeal as the first movie.
@RogerRoger Ouch, that sucks man. By any chance, have you watched the third movie yet or are you purposefully avoiding it in order to prevent another ruined relationship?
Just finished watching Spider-Man: Homecoming. I was so surprised to see it on Netflix today, apparently it was just added and I had to watch it immediately. It was a great movie! I loved the more relaxed tone of this Spider-Man compared to the Maguire trilogy. It was so refreshing considering I grew up with those movies. And once again, I like that it's part of the MCU because it makes it feel like a part of something bigger. Being able to see Iron Man in the movie and Tony Stark being Peter Parker's mentor was really cool. I don't think I would've enjoyed the movie as much if it weren't part of the MCU.
Here's hoping they'll add Far From Home on Netflix soon too!
@LtSarge I love both original Bad Boys films and I've also watched the new one. Worth watching and worth watching soon after you've seen the first two just because there are loads of references/recurring jokes.
@LtSarge I really liked Homecoming. I’m a big fan of the franchise so it’s hard to be objective, but Homecoming was such a pleasant surprise. They could have really messed up the Spider-Man integration with the MCU and I thought they nailed it. The Michael Keaton Vulture reveal was exceptionally well set up, and a real highlight. Keaton did an awesome job overall.
I think you’ll like Far From Home and No Way Home if you liked Homecoming. They are all very well produced.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@ralphdibny Haha. Alright, I think I'll give it a shot once I'm done watching Arrow season 8. Got so much stuff to watch now!
@Th3solution Yeah I've been so excited to watch these movies because they've eluded me due to them not being on Disney+. So as soon as they get added to Netflix I'm going to watch them.
And honestly, I think I like Tom Holland as Spider-Man. I've been contemplating replaying Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4 after having watched the movie since I still haven't played the DLCs but my save file was lost years ago as you well know. But then I remembered that Tom Holland is only in the PS5 version of the game, which is too bad.
Finally got around to Ralph Breaks the Internet. Not as good as the first, but as someone who grew up watching Reboot I always liked the concept of cyberspace being represented by some sort of futuristic cityscape, so I still mostly enjoyed it.
I do think it started to lean a bit too much into the stereotypical girl power theming that dominates a lot of core Disney's animated films these days, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, after the Frozen duo, Moana, Raya, & presumably Encanto, that seems to be more & more their thing this past decade (though admittedly this isn't taking Pixar's output into account).
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Just finished watching Jurassic Park for the first time and it was a great movie! I really like the concept of humans trying to play god by reviving dinosaurs and trying to control them, even if it is for entertainment purposes. I thought they explained the resurrection of the creatures well too, i.e. mosquitos preserved the blood and therefore the DNA of the dinosaurs and were fossilised in amber, which made it possible for scientists to extract it and thus clone new dinosaurs. The cloning process obviously isn't realistic but who knows, maybe we'll get there one day! Anyway, I thought the dinosaurs looked really good and there were lots of different species to see. Didn't care that much about the characters but it was cool to see Samuel L. Jackson and Jeff Goldblum in this movie. So overall, I really enjoyed watching Jurassic Park and I'm excited to watch the sequels in the near future.
@LtSarge I've seen the movie so many times, but, for the life of me, I can't remember Samuel L Jackson in it. Guess I need to rewatch it again.
Jurassic Park was, and is, a marvel of practical special effects. Frankly, the dinosaurs in that film are still vastly more convincing than the majority of CGI monsters you see in films even today.
Definitely the 90s blockbuster that has aged the most gracefully overall.
@Ralizah@Th3solution He's one of the guys who's working on the computers. Don't know how you guys could've missed him, but at least @RogerRoger remembers him lol.
@Ralizah One of my problems with watching old movies is that a lot of the times, they just don't hold up in terms of effects. For example, I didn't enjoy the original trilogy of Star Wars at all, the effects were just awful and it ruined the immersion. But I was genuinely impressed by how the dinosaurs looked in Jurassic Park.
@LtSarge For me, it's genuinely annoying how Lucas kept going back and adding in modern special effects to the original SW trilogy, as they clash with the look of the rest of the film, which was created in a pre-CG era. The practical stuff in those movies still looks fine, but then you see all of the glitzy computer stuff next to clearly decades-old film... ugh.
Jurassic Park was a perfect little jewel when it came out. Despite being an effects-driven spectacle (seriously, the Dinos in the 1993 original look better than ones in modern films like Jurassic World), it somehow never loses sight of the characters or the simple, resonant story it's trying to tell. It features some of the most iconic setpieces of all time. The pacing is great. And, like other classic films, it was all elevated by an amazing Williams score.
Never enjoyed any of the sequels, but the original is timeless.
Also, obligatory, although I recommend not watching it somewhere where salty language will get you in trouble
@Th3solution@RogerRoger Oh yeah, I think I vaguely remember that character, but it never registered for me that it was SLJ. I'm also glad I wasn't the only dufus here!
Guess I'm reposting here. Nice to see the old thread back.
Saw Scream a few days ago in a theater. Actually, it was Scream 5, but Hollywood really likes to confuse future audiences by creating sequels with identical names to past entries, for some reason. This is the first entry not directed by Wes Craven, I believe (on account of him being dead), but it... turned out rather well. It feels like a really solid Scream film. Maybe the best since the original. Of course, it's up for debate how much of the 'chirpy, self-aware teen chatter about horror movie tropes combined with a semi-legitimate attempts at making the film an actual slasher in its own right' formula works in 2022 versus 1996, but you can't fault it for trying to stay faithful to the larger franchise. Of course, they've updated it to talk about the state of Hollywood filmmaking circa 2022, with a lot of self-deprecating jokes about sequels that prey on the nostalgia of audiences by combining old and new elements together, but it's unavoidable that this type of movie just isn't fresh anymore.
As mentioned, though, it broadly works as a Scream film, has some satisfyingly brutal kills, and ratchets up the tension big time in the second half of the film.
It works for what it is. If you like Scream films in general, you'll probably like Scream 2022.
@Kidfried Yeah, I noticed it'd started infecting PlayStation games as well. At least Ratchet and Clank was an actual remake, so using the original's name made sense there.
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
The Batman’s theme’s now up on Spotify and is really quite brilliant. Interestingly, there’s a whole lot of the Medal of Honor: Frontline OST in there which makes sense given it’s Michael Giacchino. I reckon most people who were playing those sorts of games back in the early 00s will hear quite a few of those riffs in The Batman’s full OST, Giacchino does have a certain style after all for his ‘adult’ projects.
Rookie of the Year - More of a kid centric Baseball film that sees 12 year old Henry able to pitch at the professional level after recovering from a broken arm, and his talents may just be the answer to the Cubs ailing season.
It's ultimately just fluff & a bit uneven (for example his mom's boyfriend seems like a nice enough guy at the start, then they seemingly forget about him for a large chunk of the movie so the mom can form a romance with one of the Cubs players, only to randomly drop him back in again later as a mustache twirling villain conspiring to end the mom's budding romance & trading the kid off to another team for a big payout for himself without much of a buildup between the two), but hey, I like going back and watching these old 90's movies I missed as a kid, and it makes a nice change of pace from all the meticulously produced modern blockbusters.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Just had the opportunity to see Mamoru Hosoda's newest film, Belle, in a theater and... wow.
I don't usually gush over films, even if I like them. But I'm gonna gush over this one.
I'm actually not the biggest fan of Hosoda's work. Several of his films are conceptually or thematically interesting, but fail to really grab me, or can seem a bit self-serving. His best films were enjoyable, but lacked the real emotional punch I needed to fall in love with them. But Belle was, finally, that film for me. I wasn't sure I'd like it, considering it's at least partially a science-fiction treatment of Beauty and the Beast, and it makes prominent use of the horrible Metaverse concept that keeps popping up these last few years. The treatment of the Oasis/Second Life-esque digital environment in this film, called U, is consistent with a similar digital environment in what was probably his second best film, the sci-fi thriller/family drama Summer Wars. The film achieves a level of dramatized insight about the way people express themselves online, though, that allows me to fully forgive its utilization of this concept.
More importantly, the film does an amazing job of tethering the main character's experience in U as a breakout popular artist and her more mundane, everyday high school life together effectively. Its exploration of themes related to identity, emotional expression, self-acceptance, love, abuse, the paralyzing effects of profound grief, etc. is really, really well-done, and while I was afraid the Beauty and the Beast element was going to be gimmicky and detract from the film, I actually felt very much the opposite by the end. I've not read the original story, but I am a massive fan of the Disney adaptation, and have always been mildly troubled by its themes, which seem to encourage young women to draw out the 'prince' in the 'beast'ly men in their lives. Transform them with love, and all that. Fine for an idealized fantasy setting, but advice that's guaranteed to lead to years of needless pain and suffering. Without going too far into it, the film totally recontextualizes the relationship of this film's "Belle" with its "beast" in a way that is far more relatable and emotionally realistic and engaging. Rather than being a weird gimmick imposed on a sci-fi story, it really binds together other themes in the film and elevates them.
Something that always bothered me about science-fiction is we rarely get visions of how technology can help to draw out the best in people. It also draws out the worst aspects, as we see in the film, but Belle suggests that humans can find spiritual resonance in even the more ostensibly artificial spaces around them.
Modern humans often live large chunks of their lives online, and though interacting with the technology around them, and this is usually very poorly portrayed in TV and cinema. We see the 'outside' lives of people, and we usually only see technology to the extent that people use it to shut themselves out from the world. Phone bad. Go touch grass! Belle does a great job of conveying how people live their lives with one foot in the mundanity of physical existence, and another in a more abstract space of youtube videos, text messages, online conversations, etc. The film's director has spoken about how people venture 'out into the world' in digital spaces as much as they do IRL, and he does a fantastic job of exploring that in this film.
There's a subtle 'female empowerment' vibe to this film, but one that develops very naturally along with the narrative and without doing so by creating an adversarial dynamic with the male characters in the film. Hosoda accomplishes what modern Disney struggled with and ultimately failed at with their recent remake by taking the Beauty and the Beast story and turning it into something meaningful for modern girls and women.
Presentation-wise, it's just gorgeous. All of Hosoda's films since The Girl Who Leapt Through Time have been lookers, but this really takes everything to the next level visually. And aurally. While it's not necessarily a musical, music is central to the film, and it's filled with several powerful vocal performances that really benefitted from the theater setting.
We'll see if the film survives multiple viewings, but, on at least this first viewing, I was really swept up by it. Great time all around.
@Ralizah I’ve heard loads of great stuff about Belle, mostly from genuine movie critics than just the anime crowd. Like you, I’m not a massive fan of a lot of Hosoda’s stuff, it always feels like there are one too many concepts stuffed in his movies, a bit like Steven Moffat or M Night Shyamalan in that regard. Considering the praise from such diverse critics though, I’m well up for giving it a watch.
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